Don't get me started...cough...bike lanes...cough. Honestly Vancouver is a mix bag of all sorts of far left bs, you never know what you're going to get.

The sad part is the hotels/rental units were so under used that all the athletes could have stayed at hotels, but I guess someone decided it would be a good idea to show off a brand new waterfront to Vancouver..... for the cost of millions....
If only they got the guys that build the norway prison to do the olympic village then they'd sell! lol

Thats what happens when you have a worldwide front. Mad rush and the only thing that has to look nice is the outside.

Why do they need to be in 700k units?

And you think moving low incomers a 15 minute walk away from Hastings will have a profound effect on them? :/

For the price of 1 unit in the athletes village SEVERAL could be built elsewhere taking these people even further away from their problems, not giving them waterfront properties closer to them..
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It also doesn't help when the new Wall False Creek development going up right by it is selling for $300-600/sq ft cheaper.

I've done a couple walk thrus, and like C5_Ryder mentioned, the quality of the materials used just seems really bad.

I never understood why they decide to put hundreds of thousands of furnitures/appliances when the money should go into better build quality. Do they really think we're THAT stupid?
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I've seen the units too, and the quality is alright, it just doesn't match the prices. The layouts and finishings are not worth the price they are asking.

In good times people would pay a premium to live in a piece of history and for environmental build techniques. These are nolonger good times. This development should have had the price cut and sold out before the Olympics while there was hype.

I can definitely see someone paying an extra 2-3% for units where the most successful athletes stayed, especially Crosby's unit. For units that weren't occupied by stars, the people who are interested in the units are buying a part of Olympic history, the athlete who stayed in it is part of the kitch.

Is the finishing quality in the Vancouver Olympic village, similar to the quality of the village in Whistler?

For $500k units @ 600 sq ft, even Bob Rennie admitted at some CHMC conference a few weeks back it'll be awhile before these are liquidated. That's over $800/sq ft in a market that's tepid at best.

In the meantime, honest tax payers are left holding the bag :( And they wonder why people never trust the government.

As HondaRacer said - Captain Obvious should have stepped in and slapped everyone in the face when they were planning this. Did nobody raise the point that people who buy $1M condos probably don't want to hang out with hobos and welfare recipients??? WTF

What most of you don't realize is that Vancouver has been co-mixing lower income people with middle-class income earners for decades in a variety of low-key social housing schemes. Ever hear of co-ops? Or buildings where subsidized units quietly exist along side market units?

If you want a more nuanced analysis of this from people who are developers or happen to be in the know about city affairs, I would recommend a couple of blogs:

CityCaucus.com (right, anti Gregor)
francesbula.com (nuanced, ambivalent towards Gregor)

LOOK if you paid 800k+ for an apartment would you want to have some bums or some really really poor family living next to you? I don't. If I paid that much for an apartment I expect tight securities and everyone around that area is in the same social status as I am in. I am sorry but is the truth. People wants to live near or be with people who are in the same social status as they are. You won't see Bill Gates living or going to the Chinatown or eating there. You won't see a bum shopping at HR. If the gov wants to market Olympic Village to be a place for the rich to live they first need to kick out all the bums and social housing ppl there.

There is no reason to turn these expensive apartment into social housing. Why should the gov bums and the poor live in there when it cost so much to build it? Social housing should be build in off prime locations where lands are cheap. I want to live there but I have to pay for it. So why are ppl who didn't pay a penny, live off our tax dollars get to live in these apartments?

Also, if you look around that locations they are building an urban fare market, London drugs, Save-On-Foods, Vergo Burgers. Tell me how is anyone living in social housing going afford $10burgers, $5 2l milk, $5/b for permier meat? They can't!

Not saying we shouldn't care about the poor but if we were to help them we should build social housing in a place where it is cheap for us. If they refuse then that's too bad they are living off our tax dollars so they don't made demands as to where they want to live. Take it or leave it and don't whine

Once you start building social housing in 'off prime' locations they become 'projects' It's a slippery slope once you start segregating the population like this.

^^ maybe but land is too expensive near prime and downtown location it will increase the cost of social housing, thus increase our tax rates. Also, these lands could be use to build apartments, office which will sell for a higher price and make money.

Why should we have pay waste our tax dollars like this? It doesn't make sense. But then again the bums run this city and we have a mayor that just love catering them.

Also would you be ok if a BUM or if the gov starting building social housing right next to your house? You most likely won't be very happy becasue the market value of your house will go down, you might get nehgibours you might not like, there might be more trash on the streets, safety of the community might go down, and you might even have ppl knocking or even going to your yard to pick out cans, bottles without or without your permission and made a mess in your yard.

Or, if you have a decent community in your neighborhood, you can invite them to your house and start connecting them to people who can actively contribute to society in order to make them a part.

You can connect with them as people, treat them like human beings, and help them begin to grow as individuals and contributing members of society. Then, they might be able to survive on their own without social housing and government assistance.

The idea is that influence can run both ways. It's only when doors are closed that people continue on their spirals downwards.

The other thing is that if it is so hard to sell them right now, their resale value will be dismal at best. When purchasing houses/condos, resale value is a huge part of the equation. Olympic Village simply doesnt have any.

I'm thinking more as a society and a city, in the short-term it would probably be more convenient to build these low-cost housing in 'cheaper' locations but once that low-cost neighborhood starts to deteriorate, we'll be the ones held responsible (tax-wise) in helping clean up.

I am not sure if you are always around the olympic village but I work around there so I talk to and from work to the skytrain. I am seeing more and more ppl with their shopping cart full of cans. Now that's fine but what I am seeing is they are going through garbage cans dumping all the garbages on the ground and only picking up the cans, swearing at anyone that walk pass them and spits on the ground. If only they act more polite then it wouldn't be an issue. Now I am not sure if they do in fact live in the Olympic Village or just happens to be around that area but I am sorry but I do not want to live near them.

I have seen some nice bums on the streets and they acted very polite so I do give them change from time to time. I guess there are no easy way to clean up the mess the city gov have put US into.

Not a bad idea in general.

But with this project, making it LEED Platinum at a cost of $1BILLION for ~1000 units (LOL) was really, really, really dumb.

Adding social housing to it by itself isn't dumb, but it makes a bad situation worse when you can accomplish almost the same thing by adding social housing to another development across the street instead. Idealism and greed ruined this project.

They're rented and there's already a lot of social housing in false creek you dumb fucken moron.

http://vancouver.ca/NonMarketHousing_NET/

You're dreaming if you think new developments are going to include any sort of social housing, especially with the costs so high.

Why? Because if I'm buying a $700,000 apartment, I don't want to buy it knowing that some asshole next door paid half of that. Plus...well, do I have to say it? Yes, there are needy families that could use social housing that aren't just lazy fucks draining society or drug addicts that will steal my TV to buy, well, drugs but if there's even the CHANCE of that happening, I'm not buying that apartment.

I don't know why this got any support in the first place. Social housing in prime real estate is outrageous. Just knowing that welfare folks are living in a better spot than me...I can't be the only one that thinks that's just silly.

We're all probably aware that "ghettoisation" doesn't work. There's a reason the areas around the projects in the States are high crime, high...well, everything. I live (currently) in the Asian mall district in Richmond and I know that just down the road near my high school are tons of townhouses that are social housing. No problem there...they're not particularly nice townhouses. Just basic homes. No problem there...because those folks aren't getting awesome apartments for cheap.

If we just give people things...then why the hell should any of us strive to do anything at all?

IMO, it pretty much basically comes down to this.

That's fine if the city has used co-op's before and social housing has been successful in the past and it is currently exists in false creek or coal harbour. :awesom:


Point is, the NEW buyers of the OV don't want social housing in their building. It doesn't matter if it worked before, people with cheque books in hand don't want it now. If you are going to force social housing down the throats of people you expect to spend 1 million on a condo. Don't be surpised if they walk away and keep their cheque books closed. I know I did.

Or we could think of it another way. What's a natural way to depress the artificial investment/speculation value of a condo which is likely to be purchased not for its livability/utility, but for its potential resale?

Lower the income/status of the residents!

Of course, I don't dispute the waste of money that may have come about from the insane costs of development...but while you guys see "something stupid that's not worth investing in", I see a chance for a family or person with a lower-than-optimal income's opportunity to purchase a home in a location and of a size that would not otherwise be possible.
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I know the companies who were contracted for this.......and there was definite a lack of communication between the designers and the contractors for "quality".

Why should that family or person get something better than what they otherwise could have just because they don't have enough money to do so? Or, if you look at it the other way around, why should I have to pay full price just because I can when other people don't have to because they can't afford it?

That's like saying "Oh, I can't afford filet mignon but I want it anyways so give it to me, government."